Pubdate: Fri, 23 Feb 2001
Source: Slate (US Web)
Copyright: 2001 Microsoft Corporation
Website: http://slate.msn.com/
Forum: http://slate.msn.com/code/fray/theFray.asp
Author: Howard W. Gowdy III

A PROSECUTOR ADMITS THE FUTILITY OF THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS

Our Chief Justice is a prescient person. In her "State of the Judiciary"
address before the South Carolina General Assembly yesterday, she said our
criminal justice system is "slowly unraveling." Prisons are burgeoning.
Backlogs are exploding. She's right--our system is unraveling. And the
thread that broke first and hangs loosest and longest, in my opinion, is the
one called "drugs."

Drugs are everywhere. After a speech this week, a businesswoman asked me
what percentage of my work is drug related. "Conservatively," I answered,
"about 90 percent." To be sure, only about one-fourth of my backlog is bona
fide drug cases: possession, possession with intent to distribute,
distribution, and trafficking. But drug-related? Almost everything is
drug-related.

Jeffrey Motts missed death row by a vote or two. He wrote yesterday from
prison. He's there for killing two relatives for money. To invest? To buy a
book? No, he did it for a thirty-minute high. He did it for crack cocaine.
Two lives for a rock of crack cocaine.

Burglaries. Larcenies. Shoplifting. They all clog our docket. Many, if not
most, are drug related. Criminal domestic violence. Felony DUI. Drugs are
somewhere at the root of most crimes. FBI agent Jim Lannaman theorized that
80 percent of the bank robberies in our area are drug related. I disagreed.
It's more like 90 percent.

I got a letter this morning from my best friend from elementary school. We
sang Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" together in a 6th-grade talent
show. We lost, and then we lost touch through high school. He wrote from
state prison. You guessed it--drugs. He wants "his old buddy" to help him
sing another verse of freedom. Can't help you, Victor. Mandatory minimums
are rather inflexible.

We've been fighting a war on drugs for more than 20 years. Casualties are
everywhere. In prisons. In foster homes. On government subsidy. In
graveyards. On trial dockets. In state budgets. Hanging on the wall in the
DEA office in Greenville, S.C. is my most poignant reminder of this war.
It's a picture of all the DEA agents killed in the line of duty across the
world. I saw it last year preparing for a cocaine conspiracy trial. There
was Enrique Camarena. His death spawned a movie that first introduced me to
the drug war 11 years ago. I bet cocaine is cheaper and more readily
available now than it was when the Mexican government aided and abetted
Camarena's death. Wonder what he would think about NAFTA.

Another meeting in Cherokee County Friday afternoon on yet another murder
involving drugs. Some parents call about their kid being picked up with
marijuana--the selling kind, not the smoking kind. They think he deserves a
third chance. Why not, I ask my deputy solicitor facetiously. What
difference does it make? If someone wants to buy marijuana tomorrow they'll
get it whether this person is in jail or not. So too with crack cocaine and
LSD and heroin.

At the U.S. Attorney's Office I prosecuted over 300 drug dealers. The
sentences ranged from probation to life without parole. The local media was
so bored with drug cases that it virtually took life without parole to
generate interest. I didn't even begin to make a dent in the availability of
drugs

I used to watch William F. Buckley Jr. debate Michael Kinsley--and cheer for
Buckley, of course. That is, until he advocated the decriminalization of
drugs. I can't bring myself to wave the white flag in this war--despite the
casualties. I'm afraid if we pull this thread the whole fabric will come
unraveled.

Our legislature may well decide to build new courts and add judges. Later
they'll have to build more prisons. And then do it all again. It's easier
than solving the problem of drugs. We need a larger plan in our culture and
in our court systems. Larger than decriminalization. Larger than the biggest
prison we can build. Before we effectively teach our children that drugs are
illegal, maybe we should convince ourselves they're wrong.
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